1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of speech processing, and, more particularly, to automatically providing a user with substitutes for potentially ambiguous user-defined speech commands.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many speech-enabled applications allow for the creation of user-defined speech commands, which, once defined, can be used to trigger an associated action or set of actions. For example, a user of a speech-enabled mobile telephone can establish a user-defined speech command to call a frequent contact, such as a spouse. In another example, a speech-enabled word processor can include user-defined speech commands that are associated with macros. For instance, a command of “send redline” can result in the word processor generating a redline version of an active document and sending this document to an email address of the sender of the original version of the active document. In still another embodiment, a user of a speech-enabled portal can create a custom speech command that can be used to reference a defined collection of portlets.
A problem that plagues user-defined speech commands is that they are potentially acoustically similar to other existing speech commands, which can result in speech recognition ambiguities. For example, a user-defined speech command of “mail check” can be acoustically similar to a speech command for “spell check”, which can result in a speech recognition system misinterpreting a user issued speech command.
Some speech-enabled systems include a mechanism for informing a user that a user-defined command is similar to an existing command, which can result in recognition confusion. A user can then be permitted to define a different speech command for the set of actions, or to override the speech-enabled system to have the system accept the potentially confusing command, regardless of the potential ambiguity. It is common, however, for a user to be unable to readily think of a substitute voice command for the original command. Even more frustrating for a user is thinking up one or more alternate commands only to discover that the alternate commands also result in potential ambiguities with existing speech commands.
A solution is needed to mitigate user frustration with potentially ambiguous user commands. Ideally, this solution would provide the user with substitute terms for a potentially ambiguous command that are allowable by the system. That is, the terms suggested are already known to not have any acoustical similarity with existing commands.